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Gemma’s mum Helen Sproates, from Haslingden, says the family hopes to travel to the Dr Klehr Institut specialist cancer clinic in Munich, Germany, to treat her daughter’s cancer once the tumours are removed as the treatment needed is not available on the NHS.

She said: “We are hoping they can be treated by radiotherapy by the end of January because we want to go Germany in February to March. People who have gone to that clinic before with just one week to live but are still here, 10 years later.

"We would be going sooner but because of the tumours we can’t go right now.”

Helen, who runs a soft play centre in Blackburn, juggles work with taking care of both Gemma, originally from Newchurch but now based in Whalley, and her granddaughter, two-year-old Penelope.

She added: “It’s very difficult for us. We always knew the cancer would come back but we didn’t think it would be this quick. I knew it would come back but I told them not to tell her because I wanted her to have a nice Christmas with Penelope.”